Well said sir. few points which i am aware of.

a) mohd rafi was giving performance in shanmukhananda hall and yesudas after a song came to the stage; touched rafi saahebs feet and said “what i am today everything i owe to rafi ji. i started my career singing rafi songs including oh duniya ke rakhwale and its malayalam translation with the same tune”.

b) yes. there was a rehearsal at a studio and rafi, yesudas and ravindra jain were together for the song rehearsal. the rehearsals were done and then the song abandoned. even yesudas is not aware of the movie name. he remembers , there was a photo session and he is now trying to get hold of the “same pictures” even today if available.

c) recently yesu sang bhagwan song in a paramount aircraft at madras for the benefit of sanjiv rajput - a rafi fan and paramount airways flt.purser. yesudas also wrote a letter in a paramount letter-head to us at the rafi foundation for forming and leading a true fan club at various places.
i have not met das chettan for some years now and i look forward to hear about one more subject from yesudas about mohd rafi - his mansik guru and our most favoured singer.

binu nair, rafi foundation, mumbai, binus2000@hotmail.com

why would ravindra jain feel that rafi & yesudas couldn’t do justice to a song together? i guess mds really took seriously the idea of similar voices. thanks for the snippet about yesudas’ rendition of o duniya ke rakhwale and rafi sahab congratulating him!

- Manish

I would like bring to the attention of all music lovers about what a great artist like DR. K.J Yesudas who still considers rafisaab as his idol has said . From his younger age itself yesudasji had tried to follow rafisaabs songs , and had admired at the way each song was sung. He says that the song o Duniya ke rakhwale in particular can be sung by one and only rafisaab.If a musical genius like yesudas who is a trained classical singer regards rafisaab as his idol , see the unreachable zenith where rafisaab stands. In his address to music lovers in rafisaabs documentary by Mr.N.P.Abu from kerala , yesudasji says how much infulence had there been on him by rafisaab,and how as a music student he used to listen to rafisongs near Theatres and Restaurants as he could not afford to buy a Radio those days. One can imagine how much of admiration and respect is there for him when we see this footage.

If you listen to some of the old malayalam songs in the mid sixties of yesudas , we can realise this . A few examples are Ezhuthiyathaaranu sujatha, shankhupushpam from shakuntala, maranadevanoru varam koduthaal from Vithukal, innale mayangumbol..from Anweshichu Kandethiyilla, thaaamasamende .. from Bhargavi nilayam, Aaadiyi vachanamundayi.. etc to quote a few. but it should be noted equally that yesudasji never tried to imitate his voice. If you listen to almost all the early songs of yesudas you can feel this infulence.

In a interview given to a malayalam periodical long before yesudasji recollected the first time he happened to meet rafisaab. He said that it was his one of the dreams to meet his idol when he started his career in film singing in 1961. One day in the mid 70s at his madras residence an unfamiliar voice came over asking to meet him in Bombay. The person who called was MD Ravindrajain . He said yesu should come to Bombay for a recording and in the movie called chitchor the MD has intention to do a duet with rafisaab along. Yesudas who had admired rafisaab ( he still do ) all his life as his MAANASA GURU couldnt believe his ears and was stunned at the offer. What ravindrajain said was that ..Let India hear both Ganga and Yamuna flowing together.Anyhow the two thespians met for the first time at Rvindrajains residence for rehearsal. When he entered ravijis room he couldnt believe what he was seeing and there was Rafisaab sitting in a corner smiling at him.Yesudas later said that his happiness knew no bounds and for the first few minutes there was perfect silence out of happiness and excitement. Rafisaab a humble human being came up to yesu and shook hands and holded his hands for a few minutes as though he was also overjoyed to meet.They both practiced but the MD came to the conclusion that two melodious male voices cannot do justice to his song and hence the project was dropped. Yesudas said he later got a few chances to meet rafisaab but it is the meeting at Ravindarjains place tha occupies a special place in his fond memory . Yet another surprise was that sometime in late 70s when yeudas was performing live at bombays shanmukhananda hall singing O duniyake rakhwe..after the song was over rafisaab came to the stage and hugged the singer. Yesudas was least aware that rafisaab had come to the place for some other reason, and happened to hear yeudas singing the song.
One can imagine the excitement he must have experinced .

Most of us respect and adore Rafi and Kishore alike. I watched very well compiled video of Kishore Sahab on his site. I realize that Kishore has fan following which is relatively younger than Rafi Sahab’s and perhaps more into computers. Could someone more knowledable than me come up with similar video of Rafi Sahab’s life time or direct me to such existing video.

Harvinder
harveys46@yahoo.com

Thanks for the compliment. I haven’t listened to the songs of Raja Saab, certainly they must be really good. Thanks of the input.